“Creating Inviting Classrooms: Environments that Enhance, Encourage, and Engage ”

1. “Creating Inviting Classrooms: Environments that Enhance, Encourage, and Engage” Presented By: Jonathan M. Bolding

2. Introduction Did you know low-income students of color tend to feel less “connected” to their schools than affluent and Anglo students? Did you know older students feel less connected to their schools than younger students? Did you know that we are dealing with a student population now that is the most diverse, most needy, and most precocious in history? Did you know supportive relationships enable students from diverse backgrounds to fully engage and persevere?

3. An Invitation to Community Crank that GMS What does community look like? http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=31041

4. Invited to a sense of Community • What does it mean for a student to be part of a caring community? • At the heart of a high-community school is an inclusive web of respectful, supportive relationships among and between students, teachers and parents. We learn best from, and with, those we relate well.

5. Invited to a Sense of Community • High Community schools emphasize not only the importance of academic learning, but also the other qualities essential to social and civic participation. • Fostering community within a school does not occur without creating community within each individual classroom.

6. Video Clip“The Art of Disengagement” Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Discussion

7. Activity 1 • On the paper provided list ways in which you engage your students, and help them feel welcome within your respective classrooms. • Choose one member from your group to share your ideas.

8. Invited to Learn • Strahan, Faircloth, Cope, & Hundley (2006) conducted a case study that chronicled the responses of middle school students to their teachers’ efforts to reengage them in school. The team worked with two teachers and 42 8th graders who were labeled “academically at risk.” Results revealed 35 students, developed a stronger sense of academic momentum, consistently demonstrating three patterns of behavior. • Cooperation with classmates and teachers • Engaging with academic tasks • Expressing a sense of progress

9. Invited to Learn • A review of the study also noted that the success of these “at-risk” students was due to changes in attitude, task-specific successes, supportive relationships with teachers, better self-control, and opportunities for community service.

10. Invited to Learn

11. Invited to Learn • Creating classroom communities that nurture trusting relationships. • Help them to understand their academic strengths and needs • Encourage shared responsibility. • Facilitate team building • Engage in learning activities. • Develop project assignments that address inquiry-oriented, student selected issues. • Setting goals and planning • Develop a daily routine that features goal setting and reflective writing assignments. • Allow student to take responsibility for their learning. • Experimenting with new behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. • As students address goals and enact plans, they may find it helpful to have choices of assignments. • They can consider alternatives, tap prior knowledge, and try strategies in different ways. • Growing stronger academically. • As students gain confidence in themselves, they assess their progress more candidly, monitor their engagement, refine their goals, and improve their skills.

12. Environment Matters : Classroom or Episode of Hoarders

13. Invited to stay • Physical Arrangement • Look for traffic patterns and make sure that areas of the room are easily accessible to students. • Note and plan for high frequency areas, such as group work areas, pencil sharpeners, trash cans, storage areas etc. • Separate areas in which only work behaviors are reinforced from those in which more informal behavior is permitted. • Classroom attractiveness can be enhanced by bulletin boards, plants, displays, aquariums, and student projects, but not so much that it is distracting.

14. Invited to stay • The design of any physical classroom environment will vary according to a number of interacting variables: • The actual physical layout and location of the classroom. • The number, age, and behavioral profiles of students in the class. • The degrees of disability or levels of supports required by students.

15. Invited to stay • Other factors to consider. • Public and Private space. • Arrange group instruction areas with complimenting private quiet areas where students can work with limited distractions. • Furniture • Students should be able to move to high traffic areas such as the teacher desk, the pencil sharpener, and the front door without distracting others. • Open spaces that have no clear purpose should be avoided, such areas often become ground for problematic behaviors. • Easy Lines of Vision • Maintain an unobstructed view of the entire classroom. • Ensure that each student can easily see the key elements of daily lessons: the teacher, aide, chalkboard, etc. • Storage of Instructional Materials • Easy access to instructional materials and supplies increases the effectiveness of instructional procedures. • Aesthetics • Use displays of content or seasonally appropriate bulletin boards • Exhibit student work • When appropriate incorporate plants and animals

16. The Senses and Learning • Enhancing the Visual Environment • Brain research demonstrates that human eyes are capable of registering 36,000 visual messages per hour and that of over 80% of all information is visual in nature. • When speaking to a group move around the room. • Increase and decrease distance from audience. • Use visual displays to demonstrate content, using authentic objects so that students can feel as well as see them. • Color code student materials • Turn of the lights for moments of introspection.

17. The Senses and Learning Using Color and Lighting in Instructional Settings. Researchers found that bright colors tend to increase creativity and energy. Dark colors, conversley, lower stress and elicit feelings of peacefullness. • Red- raises blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, perspiration and excites brainwaves. It also stimulates apettite. • Blue- lowers blood pressure and pulse rate, very tranquil, useful for students who may be hyperactive. • Yellow- the first color the brain distinguishes, stimulates a sense of well being and optimism.

18. The Senses and Learning Lighting • soft, full spectrum lighting is optimal for learning. • Replace fluorescent light bulbs with indirect and full spectrum lighting. • Keep windows uncovered when possible and allow for natural light to filter into the classroom.

19. The Senses and Learning Sounds in the Environment. • Ways to reduce classroom noise. • Place area rugs in discussion areas to soften sound level and movement in the classroom. • Place tennis balls on the legs of chairs preventing them from banging against tables and other chairs. • Keep windows and doors shut. • Place a rubber strip around the door to block hallway noise. • Let students use earplugs to conceal extraneous noise.

20. The Senses and Learning Using Music in the Classroom • Music can provide solace or joy, it can also educate. • It appeals to emotional, cognitive, and psychomotor elements of the brain. • Listening to music engages the entire brain. • Music directly effects pulse rate, blood pressure, the nervous system, and glands of the body. • It can be used for arousal, a carrier of words, and as a primer for the brain. • Soft background music, some studies show, results in substantial improvement in comprehension.

21. The Senses and Learning Using the Sense of Smell • The use of aromas produces similar effects as music in the learning environment. • Pleasant smells can improve cognitive functioning. • Floral aromas are linked to doubling the speed of learning. • Educators can reinforce memory by using the same aroma while introducing information that will be used during an exam. • Aromas can energize, set or change mood, relax, or reinforce memory, and make the surroundings more pleasant and welcoming. • Peppermint and lemon scents: energize • Popcorn and fresh coffee: signify mood change and raise anticipation. • Vanilla, chamomile, and pine: great for performance jitters before a test to create a relaxing atmosphere.

22. Praise Break Activity 2 Let’s take a positivity pause. Let’s compliment one another or share a celebration. You can refer to the jar of positive statements if you are “at a loss for words.” 

23. Invited to Belong Do you 731? 7 – Tell each student something good within the hour. Call them what you want them to be (wonderful one, precious lamb etc.) 3- Brag on them within the hour 1- Find an excuse to say I understand, but it’s just I expect better out of you

24. Concerning Teacher Attitudes • We weren’t hired to make kids suffer, we were hired to make kids love learning. • You can choose to be right or choose to be kind. • It should never be an option to be unprofessional. • If you scream at a kid you admit you can’t control you’re own emotions. • Sometimes you must be an academy award winning actor or actress. Life happens, but even on your worst day, your smile, kind gesture, notice of concern can provide hope to a child.

25. Conclusion • Inviting classrooms that enhance, encourage, and engage are those that offer a menu of experiences to the needs of our diverse learning population. They are classrooms that foster a sense of community, that are free from clutter, and that are thoughtfully arranged. Moreover, they invite the student to learn, and belong. Finally, in efforts to promote a more welcoming environment, it is imperative that we as educators monitor our own attitudes in efforts to extend an invitation worthy of receiving.

26. Closing Clip • Cosby show Episode • Discussion

27. Wrap-Up • Questions, Comments, Concerns • Please complete Evaluation and leave face down on table. • Thank you so much for your time! 

28. Bibliography “The Power of a Teacher” presented by Larry Bell. “How to Impact Student Achievement and Make a Difference” presented by Annette Breaux Rosenburg, M.S., O’shea, L.J., and O’shea, D.J. (2006). Student Teacher to Master Teacher: A Guide for Educating Students with Special Needs. (4th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson. Schaps, E. (2009). Creating Caring Communities. Leadership. 38 (4), 8-11. Schloss, C.N., Schloss, M.A., & Schloss, P.J. (2007). Instructional Methods for Secondary Students with  Learning and Behavior Problems. (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Strahan, D. (2008). Successful Teachers Develop Academic Momentum with Reluctant Students. Middle School Journal. 39, (5), 4-12. Wilmes, B., Harrington, L., Kohler-Evans, P., & Sumpter, D. Coming to our senses: Incorporating Brain Research Findings into Classroom Instruction. Education. 128, (4), 659-667.